


At Your Back

by misbehavingvigilante



Series: reaper76 week [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Reaper76 Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 05:38:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9370556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbehavingvigilante/pseuds/misbehavingvigilante
Summary: There was a time where they used to breathe in sync with one another, able to read the slightest change of body language, even able to read each other’s thoughts with just a glance.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt at day of r76 week with At Your Back - Trust/Betrayal. 
> 
> I'm not really feeling well today so that probably impacted the quality, but I tried at least.

Trust was threadbare at first, so easy and fragile to break but given time and consideration it could be used to forge the deepest link between two people.

There was a time where they used to breathe in sync with one another, able to read the slightest change of body language, even able to read each other’s thoughts with just a glance.

But then that had changed, not at all once, too subtle and sinister to notice at first until it was far too late to have any other ending but an explosive one.

What hurt was never knowing exactly how they had gotten here, that was part of the reason that drove Jack so much to figure out what had happened within Overwatch was for purely selfish reasons. He wanted to know what happened with him and Gabriel because somehow they seemed to be the focal point of it all.

It made sense, target the two heads of Overwatch and surely the organization would crumble. What better and crueler way to do it than to turn two lovers against one another?

If that’s what happened, it truly could have been just them turning against one another without some phantom force at play pulling at the strings. That’s what Jack had thought at first anyways too blinded by grief to consider other possibilities until he sat down and actually thought things through.

Things in Overwatch hadn’t been adding up for the last couple of years, little strange incidents here and there not so unconnected as previously thought.

Jack had always turned into a bit of a conspiracy theorist when he was sleep deprived, but now he was one wide awake, too. Too many things weren’t adding up leading him to pursue the truth regardless of the cost.

It’s not like he had much left to lose nowadays.

In a way becoming Solider 76 was freeing because the position of strike commander had been chaining. Not to mention tainted, since that seemed also to be a root cause of everything that had gone wrong in his life. Would things have been different if Gabriel had been in control?

Most days, Jack is certain that would have been the case. Others, he thinks even if that had changed, they still would have ended up here.

But Solider 76 didn’t have to think about how it would look politically before he acted and just acted instead. He didn’t have to smile and be polite when he wanted nothing more than to punch someone’s face in or leave them to the fate they deserved instead of intervening on orders he didn’t agree with.

Things had been easy for a while until Reaper. Jack had always been vaguely aware of the other, it was hard not to hear about him. He was like a horror story whispered by the survivors of those who had seen him and those who he hadn’t.

It could be hard to tell what the truth was or not. So eventually Jack had just decided to research the wraith as well.

What Jack hadn’t expected was to find so many qualities of his ex-husband in him to the point it had become blinding clear that Gabriel had survived the explosion after all. Despite the fact, he had seen Gabriel’s body torn apart by the blast.

It was an ambivalent feeling a part of Jack was happy that Gabriel survived however it was managed, the other wasn’t because it came with the weight of what Reaper was all responsible for.

But perhaps, everything wasn’t as it seems.

Nowadays, Jack wasn’t so quick to assume that his first impressions were right. If Gabriel survived going to Talon only made sense if he had some sort of plan. Gabriel had always been great at adapting to circumstances on the fly, it’s probably they all had survived the omnic crisis to begin with how quickly Gabriel’s mind had worked.

Something more was going on. Jack wasn’t sure what it was this time, but he wasn’t going to be that quick to throw Gabriel under the bus. Of course, Gabriel might just want to kill him and be done with it.

Which was fine by Jack, if that’s way things were to end, that would be fine. He probably deserved to die for all of his mistakes. And in some twisted way, it would be comforting to die at Gabriel’s hand.

But maybe instead, he could have Gabriel’s back again.

Because this could all just be an elaborate ruse on Gabriel’s end, perhaps working to the same end he has. But on the other hand, Gabriel might not be acting, actually being loyal to Talon and outright murderous to all remnants of Overwatch.

Jack knew that could be the case, the man he loved could just be full of wrath now. But he owed Gabriel the benefit of the doubt.


End file.
